Here’s Atari’s alternative to the Nvidia Shield in all its wood-panelled, retro-aesthetic glory

Atari have unveiled the first pictures of their new Ataribox console, detailing two versions of the upcoming game box: one retro, one modern. But if you’re dropping cash on a retro-minded console, why the hell wouldn’t you go for the version with the wood-panelling?

We haven’t seen what its controller looks like yet, so here’s our pick of the best PC controllers in the meantime.

They’ve used the old-school Atari console design notes to create the Ataribox’s aesthetic, riffing on the iconic wood-panelling and ribbed surface. The two different designs for the console seem to revolve around either having a black glass panel in the front, with a red Atari logo, or a wooden front with a white logo.

Aside from the look of the thing Atari haven’t made any other announcements about what exactly they’re making. But, given the fact the rear panel is sporting four USB ports, a HDMI connection, SD slot, and ethernet port, it’s evidently going to have modern internals.

Atari do, however, say they’re not just creating the Ataribox for old-school gaming goodness. “While we will be delivering classic gaming content, we will also be delivering current gaming content.”

#content

To our mind, that would suggest we are either talking about a mini PC console or a little Android box, a la Nvidia’s Shield. Realistically, it’s more likely the latter, but that could still make it a fantastic game streaming box to get your desktop PC games down into your living room, especially if they can undercut Nvidia on the pricing.